The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, February 12, 2016

The Occupy Wall Street populist is terrified of being outed as a 1-percenter Wall Street elitist.

The campaign of class-warrior Hillary Clinton is pushing the panic button over the prospective release of secret transcripts of high-dollar speeches she made to Goldman Sachs that threaten to portray her as a two-faced un-progressive Wall Street elitist who is out of touch with the common people.The Democrats' leading avatar of avarice depicts herself as the candidate of Occupy Wall Street, a fearless champion of the downtrodden, but the transcripts of three speeches for which Goldman paid her an astonishing $675,000 threaten to torpedo the false, focus group-friendly image she has cultivated.In the speeches to her fellow one-percenters, she reportedly comes across as unduly cozy with the financial titans that her angry left-wing base blames for most of America's (and the world's) problems today. In the current political environment publication of the transcripts could be as damaging to her run as Republican Mitt Romney's ruinous "47 percent" speech was to his 2012 campaign.One speech attendee reportedly said Clinton "sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director" than a politician. This phrase could easily end up in her Democratic opponent's TV ads as the race shifts to the March 1 vote in critical South Carolina.The matter now takes on an even greater urgency for Clinton after Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, crushed her in the New Hampshire primary elections Tuesday. At press time Sanders had a reported 60 percent of the Democratic vote, compared to just 38 percent for Clinton. Clinton's humiliation in New Hampshire comes after party insiders' dirty tricks enabled her to just barely limp away from the Iowa caucuses a week ago with a victory over Sanders.Clinton's duplicitousness could end up being her undoing.Politicoreported in 2013 that Wall Street plutocrats felt reassured by a speech Hillary had delivered away from TV cameras. Sources in attendance paraphrased her saying that "the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish."The article continued:"Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to work together to get out of it. What the bankers heard her to [sic] say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn’t going to improve the economy—it needs to stop. And indeed Goldman’s Tim O’Neill, who heads the bank’s asset management business, introduced Clinton by saying how courageous she was for speaking at the bank."During another 2013 speech at a Goldman retreat in Arizona for which she pocketed $225,000, Mrs. Clinton was bursting with praise for the investment bank's capital-generating and job-creation efforts. She lauded Goldman for its workplace diversity and conspicuously left out any criticism of the company or of the financial sector for any role it may have played in the 2008 stock market collapse.“It was pretty glowing about us,” said one person who heard the speech. “It’s so far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. It was like a rah-rah speech. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director.”Releasing the transcript "would bury her against Sanders,” the individual said. “It really makes her look like an ally of the firm.”In a separate speech the same year to Goldman and some of its major clients Clinton refused to blame the banks alone for causing the market meltdown from which the U.S. economy has yet to fully recover.

Sounding like a Republican or a libertarian economist, Hillary said the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2010 may have contributed to the financial crisis.“It was mostly basic stuff, small talk, chit-chat,” said one witness. “But in this environment, it could be made to look really bad.”Clinton mouthpiece Brian Fallon huffed that the anonymous recollections were "pure trolling," but as Bernie Sanders keeps pounding away at the Clinton campaign, attacking her from the left as a tool of special interests, the pressure on Clinton to release the transcripts grows.“The big-picture question voters care about is: Who does a politician surround themselves with and will they hold accountable people they have a close relationship with?” Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee was quoted as saying.“Hillary Clinton would reassure voters if she said she would appoint a Treasury secretary not from Wall Street, an attorney general and SEC chair with a proven record of holding Wall Street accountable, and generally work with [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] to stop the revolving door between industry and government.”The former secretary of state has pushed back against allegations of corporate water-carrying in recent days.

And on Monday she directed her fire against her primary opponent, offering an unconvincing argument.

“Sen. Sanders took about $200,000 from Wall Street firms. Not directly, but through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,” Clinton said. “There was nothing wrong with that. It hasn't changed his view! Well, it didn't change my view or my vote either!”Townhall's Guy Benson opines that releasing the speech transcripts could be fatal for Clinton. It "would further undermine her credibility among the Democratic base's rabidly anti-Wall Street base, buttress one of Bernie Sanders' central lines of attack, and again expose her as self-serving and genetically incapable of ruthful candor."That Hillary Clinton still has any credibility with anyone anywhere at this point in her career is hard for rational people to accept.She’s an awful candidate and "a congenital liar," as New York Times columnist William Safire famously dubbed her.And her fevered attempts to depict her family as ordinary people facing the same problems everyone faces have fallen flat. This is the person who in 2014 tried to portray her family as financially struggling when her husband's presidency ended in 2001."You have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt," Clinton told ABC’s Diane Sawyer with a straight face. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education." [italics added]

But as Politicoreports, the Clintons "are far from the 'dead broke' couple, as she has described, who left the White House saddled with debt after Bill Clinton's presidency. In fact, they now rank comfortably among the top one-tenth of the top 1 percent of earners."Disclosure forms indicated that at best the Clintons had a net worth of negative $500,000. But those documents did not include the five-bedroom home in Chappaqua, N.Y., they purchased in 1999 for $1.7 million. Also not included was the seven-bedroom house across the street from the Royal Danish Embassy in Washington, D.C., that they bought in late 2000 for $2.85 million.By 2001 Hillary had received $2.84 million in royalties from Simon and Schuster and by 2004 she was the 10th-wealthiest member of the U.S. Senate, with a net worth somewhere between $10 million and $50 million.As of last fall, Clinton herself was worth about $32 million. One source estimates that Clinton has a net worth of "about 50 times that of Bernie Sanders[.]"Hillary earns more for a 20-minute speech than a fast food employee makes in a year. The Clintons pay more than $100,000 a year in local property taxes on two fancy homes. Then there is the international clearinghouse for future presidential favors known as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. How the money moves around isn't entirely clear but surely at least some of the anticipatory bribes paid to the charity by foreign governments and huge multinationals find their way to the Clintons' bank accounts.Although Hillary Clinton, the supposedly inevitable nominee who managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008, is (again) in trouble during primary season, it is still too early to write her political obituary.

Clinton has waited eight years for her postponed coronation and this is probably the last opportunity she will ever have to make her mark on history.Hillary still has more than a few tricks up the sleeve of her pantsuit.

Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative reporter and the author of the book, "Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers."Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261784/hillary-fights-keep-wall-street-speeches-secret-matthew-vadum Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

New initiative will refute genocidal lies about Israel which fuel anti-Semitism on campus.

Citing a large and disturbing rise in anti-Semitic incidents on American college campuses, the David Horowitz Freedom Center today announced that it is launching a new campaign to counter Jew Hatred at the nation’s colleges and universities.On college campuses across America, hatred and bigotry directed at Jews is at an all time high. From swastikas appearing on Jewish fraternity houses to mock “apartheid walls” which disseminate mendacious Hamas propaganda, from anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolutions to angry and sometimes violent attempts to shut down pro-Israel speakers, America’s universities have become a new fount of Jew hatred which then leeches into our broader culture. Despite their rush to accommodate other campus minorities, American universities have done little or nothing to protect the Jewish students under their charge.This Jew hatred is fomented by campus organizations—most notably Students for Justice in Palestine— that support the terrorist regimes in Gaza and the West bank who spread lies about the Jewish state. Chief among these lies is the claim that the Jews “stole” Arab land to create the state of Israel.The lie that Jews stole Arab land is regarded as a universal truth by many students on campuses across the nation, even though it is a transparent falsehood. Like Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Israel was created on land that belonged to the Turks (who are not Arabs) for 400 years, which they lost as a result of their defeat in World War I. To take just one example of where this lie can lead a person, UCLA student Lisa Marie Mendez, who is also an employee at the UCLA Medical Center, recently wrote on social media:“F**king Jews. GTFOH with all your Zionist bullshit.Crazy ass f**king troglodyte albino monsters of cultural destruction.F**king Jews. GTFOH with your whiny bullshit. Give the Palestinians back their land, go back to Poland or whatever freezer-state you’re from, and realize that faith does not constitute race.”

This view of Jews as the thieves of Palestinian land is far from rare, and translates into a growing hostility towards Jews on American campuses. A recent study from the Brandeis Center for Human Rights found that more than half of nearly 1,200 Jewish students surveyed at 55 campuses nationwide reported having experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism on campus during the last year.Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus will confront the agents of this anti-Semitism by refuting the four primary and genocidal lies about the Jewish state spread by Palestinian terrorists and their campus allies which underpin the modern architecture of Jew hatred. These lies include the claims that Israel occupies Palestinian land and that Israel is an apartheid state. These lies and rebuttals to them may be found on the campaign website, www.StoptheJewHatredonCampus.org.Students at campuses across the nation will participate in the campaign by holding teach-ins to raise student awareness about Jew hatred and anti-Semitism, and to combat the genocidal Hamas propaganda which has become a familiar presence on American campuses.These teach-ins will feature speakers including David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, Richard Cravatts and others who can expose the truth about Jew hatred on campus and the steps we must take to thwart it. Participating students may also distribute literature including the Freedom Center pamphlets Big Lies: Demolishing the Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel and Why Israel is the Victim, organize campus film screenings, participate in postering campaigns, and hold silent vigils outside the campus offices of Students for Justice in Palestine (one of the chief instigators of campus Jew hatred) to raise awareness of these pressing concerns. These events will be concentrated during the week of March 7-11, but may also occur throughout the spring semester.“In order to win the campus war against Israel and the Jews, our first task must be to subvert the malicious and genocidal lies that form the basis of the pro-Hamas and anti-Israel propaganda on American campuses,” stated Freedom Center founder and chairman David Horowitz. “Campus Jew-haters have been hiding their true intentions behind a false front of humanitarianism by claiming that Israel is an ‘apartheid’ state that oppresses the Palestinians. Our campaign will reveal these lies as Hamas propaganda and expose the baseless Jew hatred, absent all noble intentions, which lies at the heart of anti-Israel activism on campus.”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center, founded in 1989, is a not-for-profit organization located in Los Angeles, California. The Center is a School of Political Warfare whose mission is to identify the enemies of free societies like America and Israel, and devise ways to defeat them. To carry out this mission, the Center publishes Frontpagemag.com, JihadWatch.org and TruthRevolt.com. These sites are visited by more than 3 million readers per month. The Center also operates a website, DiscoverTheNetworks.org, which is an encyclopedia of the political left that receives more than 6 million visits per year. The Center operates a number of other programs including, the Israel Security Project run by Caroline Glick, the Individual Rights Foundation and the campaign, www.StoptheJihadonCampus.org. The Center is currently publishing a nine-volume series by David Horowitz called The Black Book of the American Left.CONTACT: Elizabeth Ruiz818-849-3470, ext. 202Elizabeth@horowitzfreedomcenter.orgDavid Horowitz Freedom CenterSource: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261789/david-horowitz-freedom-center-launches-campaign-david-horowitz-freedom-center Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Yes, there were Arabs living in Israel at the time, but they were not a distinct nation
called “Palestinian.” They were simply referred to as “Arab groups in
Palestine” (I will get around to the birth of “Palestinian nationalism”
in the early 20th century in other posts).Aussie Dave

Arab MK Basel Ghattas, one of the three MKs from the Joint List party's Balad faction who raised a storm last week by meeting with the families of ten Jerusalem terrorists, has come out with a new statement justifying the terrorist murderers.

Ghattas last Friday termed the terrorists as "martyrs," but speaking on Wednesday to the Arabic-language Israeli TV station Hala TV as translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Thursday, the radical MK took his comments a step further.

According to the member of Israel's Knesset, the murder of Israelis by Arab terrorists is not "criminal," but rather is an act conducted "in the passion of the struggle against the abusive occupation."

"The day that Arab Knesset members abstain from visiting the families of the martyrs who lost their dear children in the passion of the struggle against the abusive occupation - they didn't go to kill or try to kill on a criminal background - on the day we abstain from visiting and meeting the families of martyrs, we will need to clear our places (in the Knesset), leave the keys and go home."

"Ban the terrorists"

Yisrael Beytenu chairperson MK Avigdor Liberman responded to Ghattas's statement Thursday, saying, "the only solution to deal with statements like these of MK Ghattas and his friends is a bill that Yisrael Beytenu submitted. The bill by MK Oded Forer which passed yesterday in an initial reading establishes that a person who incites to terror cannot serve as an MK."

Liberman said the bill "is exactly the solution that will put an end to the insufferable phenomenon of statements like these from the fifth column sitting in the Israeli Knesset."

"I also hope that the Prime Minister will regain composure, stop playing small politics and will not again shoot down the bill that I submitted which rules that the High Court cannot overrule the decisions of the Elections Committee, and thereby make it possible to ban the complete Balad party of terrorists from taking part in the elections and destroying Israeli democracy."

Ghattas's comments legitimizing the murder of his fellow Israeli citizens comes after he was suspended from the Knesset for four months this week, and likewise MK Hanin Zoabi was given four months and MK Jamal Zahalka two months.

However, Liberman on Monday called the suspensions a joke, noting the three will still be able to participate in Knesset votes. He said the Knesset Ethics Committee should have handed them the maximum penalty, a suspension from the Knesset sessions for six months and a denial of wages. Joint List head MK Ayman Odeh had estimated the Balad faction faced being banned.

In the meeting, the three MKs held a minute of silence and said a prayer in honor of the terrorists and comforted their families, who they called "bereaved families."

They promised to secure the return of the bodies of the terrorists - their efforts apparently worked despite widespread outrage over the meeting, as it was reported Monday an agreement has been reached to return the bodies.

Among the families present at the meeting was that of Baha Alian, who together with another accomplice last October conducted a shooting attack on a bus, murdering 78-year-old Haim Habib, 51-year-old Alon Guvberg and 76-year-old Richard Lakin.Ari YasharSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/207895#.Vryx8eazdds Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Deputy Commissioner Jamal Hakroush to head new division designed to fight crime in Israel's Arab sector and boost cooperation between Arabs and Jews • New division is the brainchild of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and police chief Roni Alsheikh.

Deputy Commissioner Jamal Hakrush

Security Minister Gilad Erdan plans to
establish new division within the Israel police force that will be
tasked with promoting law enforcement in Israel's Arab sector and
recruiting Arab Israelis to serve in the police force.

Assistant Commissioner Jamal Hakroush is set
to head the new division and will become the first Muslim Arab in the
history of Israel to rise to the rank of deputy commissioner.

Hakroush currently serves as the Deputy Chief
Officer of the Coastal Police District. He was the first Arab-Muslim to
receive the rank of assistant commissioner, and also the first to serve
as a deputy chief officer.

The new division is the brainchild of Erdan
and Police Commissioner Insp. Gen. Roni Alsheikh, and has been designed
to boost cooperation in the Arab sector as well as to fight the high
crime rate in Arab villages and towns.

Hakroush joined the Israeli police in 1978 and
served in numerous roles including commander of the immigration police
in the Haifa district, commander of Afula and Nahariya police stations
during the Second Lebanon War, and in 2007 he was appointed commander of
the Zevulun Station in Haifa.

Hakroush is from the village of Kafr Kanna‎,
where he still resides with his wife and four children. He has been
serving as the deputy commander of the Coastal District since 2010.

The new division will be charged with establishing new
police stations in Arab districts across the country and recruiting
cadets from within the sector.

During the past two decades,
some of the Israeli Arab community's elected representatives and leaders
have worked harder for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
than for their own Israeli constituents.

These parliamentarians ran in elections on the promise of working
to improve the living conditions of Israeli Arabs and achieving full
equality in all fields. However, they devote precious time and energy on
Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel. They vie for the
distinction of being the most vitriolic provocateur against their
country.

Such provocations make it more difficult for Arab university
graduates to find jobs in both the Israeli private and public sectors.

The big losers are the Arab citizens of Israel, who have once
again been reminded that their elected representatives care far more
about non-Israeli Palestinians than they care about them.

The uproar surrounding a recent meeting
held by three Israeli Arab Members of Knesset (parliament) with
families of Palestinians who carried out attacks against Israelis is not
only about the betrayal of their country, Israel. It is also about the
betrayal of their own constituents: the 1.5 million Arab citizens of
Israel.

Knesset members Haneen Zoabi, Basel Ghattas and Jamal Zahalka managed
to accomplish several things at once with this controversial meeting.
They certainly seem to have provoked the ire of many Jewish Israelis.
Perhaps they violated the oath they made when they were sworn into
parliament: "I pledge to bear allegiance to the State of Israel and
faithfully to discharge my mandate in the Knesset."

One thing, however, they have accomplished without question is acting against the interests of Israeli Arabs.

Zoabi, Ghattas and Zahalka met with Palestinian families who are not
Israeli citizens and do not vote for the Knesset. As such, none of these
families voted for the three Knesset members or the Arab List party to
which they belong. Of course, as part of a democratic government, any member of the Knesset is free to meet with any Palestinian from the West Bank, Gaza Strip or Jerusalem.

It is worth noting that not all Arab Knesset members are involved in
fiery rhetoric and provocative actions against Israel. However, there is
good reason to believe that some Arab Knesset members deliberately engage in actions and rhetoric with the sole purpose of enraging not only the Israeli establishment, but also the Jewish public.

This meeting was the latest in a series of actions by Arab Knesset
members that have severely damaged relations between Jews and Arabs
inside Israel. Such actions have one clear result: colossal injury to
Arab citizens' efforts for full equality.

During the past two decades, some of the Arab community's
representatives and leaders have worked harder for Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip than for their own Israeli constituents.

These parliamentarians ran in elections on the promise of working to
improve the living conditions of Israeli Arab voters and achieving full
equality in all fields. However, they devote precious time and energy on
Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel. Their spare moments are
spent vying for the distinction of being the most vitriolic provocateur
against their country.

Instead of acting against the interests of the Palestinians -- by
pretending they were sitting in a Palestinian parliament and not the
Knesset -- there are alternative scenarios. These Arab Knesset members
could be serving as a bridge between Israel and Palestinians living
under the jurisdiction of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank.

Decisions such as the one to join a flotilla "aid" ship
to the Gaza Strip -- which was more a poke in Israel's eye than any
attempt to help Palestinians -- turn the Jewish public against the
Israeli Arab public, who are then viewed as a "fifth column" and an
"enemy from within."

Such provocations make it more difficult for Arab university
graduates to find jobs in both the Israeli private and public sectors.
The deeds and rhetoric of these Knesset members have ensured a
continuing gap between Arabs and Jews inside Israel.

Thanks to some Arab Knesset members, many Jews no longer see a
difference between an Arab citizen who is loyal to Israel and a radical
Palestinian from the Gaza Strip or West Bank who seeks to destroy
Israel.

Of course, Arab Knesset members have the right to criticize the
policies and actions of the Israeli government. But such criticism ought
to be leveled from the Knesset podium and not from Ramallah, Gaza or on
board a ship carrying a load of Israel-haters and activists.

Just to be clear: this is not a call for banning Arab Knesset members
from meeting with their Palestinian brethren from the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and Jerusalem. Rather, this is a call for Knesset members to
consider carefully their aims and the tone in which they are carried
out.

The recent meeting in question began with a moment of silence for
specific dead -- that is, the Palestinian attackers who murdered and
wounded several people. Jewish Israelis are likely to have particular
feelings about this choice of opening.

Israeli
Arab Members of Knesset Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi and Basel Ghattas
(at the head of the table, facing the camera) recently met with families
of terrorists who attacked and murdered Israelis. The meeting opened
with a moment of silence for the dead attackers. (Image source:
Palestinian Media Watch)

Things could have been different. Arab Knesset members could have
used the meeting to issue a call for an end to the current wave of
stabbing, vehicular and shooting attacks, which began in October 2015.
They could have demanded that Palestinian leaders, factions and media
outlets cease brainwashing young men and women, and cease urging them to
murder Jews -- any Jews.

The Palestinian families who met with the three Arab Knesset members
have nothing to lose. Nor do the other Palestinians living in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. For them, these Knesset members are probably doing a
better job representing them than the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.

The big losers are the Arab citizens of Israel, who have once again
been reminded that their elected representatives care far more about
non-Israeli Palestinians than they care about them.

Thus far, only a handful of Arab Israeli voices have had the courage
to criticize their representatives in the Knesset. Yet it is precisely
these citizens who need to punish their failed Knesset members, not the
Israeli government or any parliamentary committee or court. The power is
certainly in their hands.

If the Israeli Arab majority continues to waffle, allowing its
leaders free reign, Arab Knesset members will lead their people only to
nothing.

Erdogan and his prime
minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, are now paying the price for their
miscalculated Islamist aspirations to install a Muslim Brotherhood type
of Sunni regime in Syria in place of the non-Sunni Assad regime. Assad,
with Russia's help, has become somewhat untouchable, and has never been
so safe and secure since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
By contrast, the Turks now face a multitude of threats on both sides of
an apocalyptic border.

"With the Middle East ravaged by religious radicalism and
sectarianism, the European Union and the United States can't afford the
Turkish government's brutal military efforts against the Kurds or its
undemocratic war on academics and journalists. Only a secular,
democratic Turkey that can provide a regional bulwark against radical
groups will bring stability to both the Middle East and Europe. As Mr.
Erdogan seeks to eliminate all opposition and create a single-party
regime, the European Union and the United States must cease their policy
of appeasement and ineffectual disapproval and frankly inform him that
this is a dead end." — Behlul Ozkan, assistant professor at Istanbul's
Marmara University, writing in the New York Times.

Six years ago, Turkey's official narrative over its leaders'
Kodak-moment exchanges of pleasantries with Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad's regime in Damascus promised the creation of a Muslim bloc
resembling the European Union. Border controls would disappear, trade
would flourish, armies would carry out joint exercises, and Turks and
Syrians on both sides of the border would live happily ever after.
Instead, six years later, blood is flowing on both sides of the 900
kilometer border.

Inside Turkey, clashes between security forces and members of the
youth wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been
taking place for weeks. Many towns and neighborhoods have turned into
ghost-towns, as strict curfews are now in place. As a result, tens of
thousands of Kurds have been forced to flee their homes, seeking refuge
in safer parts of the country. While the Turkish army struggles to diffuse
the latest Kurdish urban rebellion, hundreds of Kurdish militants and
members of Turkey's security forces have lost their lives.

Worse, the conflict has the potential to trigger further violence in
Turkey's non-eastern regions, where there is a vast Kurdish population
spread across large cities.

Already in Istanbul, violence erupted
on February 2, 2016, when unidentified gunmen opened fire on the campus
of an Islamic association; they killed one man and wounded three
others. In a second incident in a suburb of Istanbul, two people were
killed and seven wounded after armed assailants fired on a tea-house.

Across the border in northern Syria, Turkey's "Kurdish problem" is
equally pressing. The PKK's Syrian faction, the Democratic Union Party
(PYD), has been successfully fighting on the front-lines alongside the
Western alliance that is waging war on the Islamic State (IS), and
making itself highly regarded by the alliance, thereby further angering
Ankara.

Turkey, which views the PYD as a terrorist organization like the PKK,
fears that the Syrian Kurds' fight against IS could, in the near
future, earn the PYD international legitimacy.

On February 1, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition against
IS, visited a part of Kurdish-controlled northern Syria. On his visit,
McGurk posed in front of cameras with a PYD commander -- all smiles --
while receiving an honorary plaque. The ceremony lent further legitimacy
to the PYD. McGurk's actions greatly angered Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. In a statement
directed towards Washington, Erdogan asked: "How will we trust [you]?
Am I your partner or are the terrorists in Kobane [the Kurdish town in
northern Syria]?"

Ironically, Syrian Kurds are not only backed by the U.S., but also by
Russia, which became another Turkish nightmare. On November 24, 2015,
two Turkish F-16 jets shot down a Russian Su-24 military jet flying
along Turkey's border with Syria. Turkey justified its actions against
Russia, citing a violation of Turkish airspace. Russian President
Vladimir Putin pledged to punish Turkey by means "other than" a slew of
severe commercial sanctions.

Immediately after the November 24th incident, in a clear signal to Turkey, Moscow began to reinforce its military deployments
in Syria and on the eastern Mediterranean. These included installations
of S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense batteries, lying in
wait for the first Turkish plane to fly over Syrian skies, in order to
shoot it down in front of the cameras. Russia's scare tactics worked.
The Turks halted their airstrikes against IS strongholds in Syria.

On January 29, 2016, another Russian jet, this time a Su-34, violated
Turkish airspace and was not shot down. The Turks, already uneasy over
tensions with Russia, did not pull the trigger. Most observers agree
that the second violation and Turkey's failure to shoot,
despite earlier pledges that "all foreign aircraft violating Turkish
airspace would be shot down," was a major humiliation on the part of
Ankara.

Left:
A Russian Su-24 bomber explodes as it is hit by a missile fired from a
Turkish F-16 fighter, on Nov. 24, 2015. Right: A Russian Su-34 fighter
jet. On Jan. 29, 2016, a Russian Su-34 violated Turkish airspace and was
not shot down, despite earlier pledges that "all foreign aircraft
violating Turkish airspace would be shot down."

Much to Turkey's discomfort, the Russians are playing a tough game in
Syria. Most recently, the Russian military deployed at least four
advanced Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker-E aircraft to Syria; the move -- shortly
after the January violation of Turkish airspace by the Su-34 -- further
augmented its air superiority and boldly challenging Ankara.

"Starting from last week, super-maneuverable Su-35S fighter jets
started performing combat missions at Khmeimim airbase," Russian Defense
Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told
the TASS news agency on February 1. But a more humiliating move by
Moscow was to come: Russian forces in Syria bombed "moderate" anti-Assad
Islamist groups, as well as Turkmen (ethnic Turks) in northwestern
Syria.

Russian airstrikes have reinforced Assad's forces that now encircle
Aleppo, a strategic city in the north. More than 70,000 Syrians, mostly
Turkmen, fled from their villages to the Turkish border to seek refuge
inside Turkey, and potentially add to the country's refugee problem.
Turkey is home to more than 2.5 million Syrians who have fled the civil
war. It is estimated that at least one million more would flee to Turkey
if Aleppo fell to Assad's forces.

Erdogan and his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, are now paying the
price for their miscalculated Islamist aspirations to install a Muslim
Brotherhood type of Sunni regime in Syria in place of the non-Sunni
Assad regime. Assad, with Russia's help, has become somewhat untouchable
and has never been so safe and secure since the outbreak of the Syrian
civil war in 2011. By contrast, the Turks now face a multitude of
threats on both sides of an apocalyptic border.

"With the Middle East ravaged by religious radicalism and
sectarianism, the European Union and the United States can't afford the
Turkish government's brutal military efforts against the Kurds or its
undemocratic war on academics and journalists. Only a secular,
democratic Turkey that can provide a regional bulwark against radical
groups will bring stability to both the Middle East and Europe. As Mr.
Erdogan seeks to eliminate all opposition and create a single-party
regime, the European Union and the United States must cease their policy
of appeasement and ineffectual disapproval and frankly inform him that
this is a dead end."

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7418/turkey-haunted-border-with-syria Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home party spoke on
Thursday at the Dead Sea Directors Conference, where she asserted that
it is impossible to adopt the historic 2012 Levy Report at the current juncture in time.

She began by saying, "this coalition is right-wing, and comes to rule according to the agenda of the right, not of the left."

When asked about the management of Israel's Biblical heartland of
Judea and Samaria, which remains under military rule given that it has
yet to be annexed since having been liberated in the 1967 Six Day War,
Shaked said "we work together with the Defense Minister."

"They lead but we are very dominant. There is cooperation and it's
significant and important," she added. Queried regarding law enforcement
in the region, she opined, "I don't think that there is harsher
enforcement against Jews in Judea and Samaria than there is against
Arabs."

The statement comes on the background of the complaints of activists, who have documented systematic illegal Arab building in
serious offenses that have yet to be acted on, even though in many
cases the structures have demolition orders on them. Meanwhile many
Jewish buildings are demolished despite having been bought in full, in
many cases in the name of a non-present alleged Arab owner.

Addressing the destruction of Jewish buildings in Judea and Samaria,
Shaked said, "some of the crises like Migron and Ulpana occurred because
of problems that they built, and some because of responses of the state
to the High Court." She said that in her role she works to give quick
responses by the state in such cases to increase the chances of
legalizing the construction, adding, "we are examining things regarding
the chances of saving the nine homes in Ofra and Amona, but the chance
isn't high."

Levy Report

Shaked then made a significant policy statement, stating that under
the current circumstances it is impossible to adopt the Levy Report
through a governmental decision.

Shaked herself has called to annex the regions classified as Area C
by the 1994 Oslo Accords following her party chair Naftali Bennett's
plan. She outlined the plan in late 2014 on Channel 2's "Kitzis
Show" hosted by Eyal Kitzis, explaining it involves creating a full
Arab autonomy in Areas A and B and removing security checkpoints from
the vast array of blocs that would have a "border" hundreds or thousands
of miles long. She conceded that the plan would create a "Palestinian state" that she thought would later become a "confederation with Jordan."

Despite having been commissioned by Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, two consecutive coalition governments headed by him have yet
to adopt the Levy Report and thereby fully recognize Israel's legal
presence in Judea and Samaria.

"Terrorists can't be expelled abroad"

In the conference on Thursday, Shaked went on to speak about policies
that can be taken to fight the current wave of Arab terrorism,
including the expulsion of the families of terrorists.

"The state of Israel is working according to international law, and
it is possible to expel terrorists. (Former Prime Minister Yitzhak)
Rabin did it," she said. "It isn't possible to expel the families of
terrorists who were not involved."

Noting on the 1,027 terrorists released in the 2011 Shalit deal, she
said that Israel was able to recapture recidivist terrorists in Judea
and Samaria following the deal, but not in Gaza, and therefore said,
"expelling to Gaza is not a solution, better to Judea-Samaria, in that
way we have control."

"Expulsion to outside of Israel will fall in the High Court," she
said, indicating that the government would not be able to expel
terrorists abroad due to the interference of the court.

Shaked also said she was working to reduce the responsibilities of
her Justice Ministry, saying, "we are weak on many things. We have to
reduce our control and reduce the dependency on the Justice Ministry."

The minister then addressed the coalition dispute over the
responsibilities of Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan (Jewish Home)
over the IDF Civil Administration, which has authority in Judea and
Samaria, and said that the decision not to grant Ben-Dahan control was a
breach of a coalition promise.

While noting that her party has raised the matter with Netanyahu, she
said, "the relations in the coalition are like the relations in a
family, and you have to think about what you want to make an uproar
over."

"I hope that Jewish Home will rise in the coming elections. We took
an electoral blow (in the last elections). The roles in the government
are significant and the spirit (in the party) has changed a little. The
coalition is stable and successful and it takes time to move the ship."Shlomo PiotrokovskySource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/207890#.VrziMeazdds Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Asked about proposals by some Arab countries to enter the conflict
under a US command, Medvedev said, "that would be bad because ground
offensives usually lead to wars becoming permanent."

"The Americans and our Arabic partners must think hard about this: do
they want a permanent war?" he was quoted as telling the German Handelsblatt business daily.

"Do they really think they would win such a war very
quickly? That's impossible, especially in the Arabic world. There
everyone is fighting against everyone...everything is far more
complicated. It could take years or decades."

"Why is that necessary?" he added, according to a pre-released
excerpt from the daily's Friday edition. "All sides must be forced to
the negotiating table instead of sparking a new world war."

Medvedev's comments come after Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al-Assiri, the
spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition force in Yemen, announced Thursday
that Saudi Arabia's decision to send troops to Syria is "final."

He said that Riyadh is “ready” and will fight with its US-led
coalition allies to defeat Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, adding that
the decision on whether to utilize the deployment will be up to
Washington.

Russia along with Saudi Arabia's fierce Shi'ite rival Iran have been militarily propping up Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

Al-Assiri on Thursday also said that the Islamic Military Alliance will come into being in two months' time.

Thirty-five Muslim countries released a joint statement announcing
the formation of the alliance against terrorism in December of 2015. The
alliance’s joint command center is located in the Saudi capital - Iran
is not among the countries taking part.

Medvedev's warnings regarding Syria come the same Thursday that US
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter revealed NATO is also considering
joining the US-led coalition against ISIS in Syria.

Iranian defense minister says his country "will unveil the next generation of Emad with improved precision in the next [Iranian] year [starting March 20]" • Iran to also start receiving Russian S-300 air defense system and possibly Sukhoi-30 fighter jets.

An Iranian Emad rocket
launched as part of a missile test held in October

|

Photo credit: Reuters

Iran plans to unveil an upgrade of its Emad
ballistic missile this year, the Iranian Defense Minister Hossein
Dehghan announced on Wednesday, advancing a program that has drawn
criticism from the United Nations and sanctions from the United States.

In October, Iran declared it had successfully
tested the domestically produced long-range precision-guided missile,
which it said was the first that could be guided all the way to targets
at a range of 1,700 kilometers (1,100 miles), putting Israel within
reach.

"We will unveil the next generation of Emad
with improved precision in the next [Iranian] year [starting March 20],"
Dehghan was quoted as saying by Iran's Fars news agency.

"The Emad missile is not a violation of the
nuclear deal or any U.N. resolution since we will never use a nuclear
warhead [on it]. It's an allegation," he said, adding that mass
production of the missile would begin shortly.

Iran is also expected to start receiving a
delivery of the advanced Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile defense
system in the next two months, Dehghan added -- a system that was
unavailable to Iran before a landmark nuclear deal was reached with
world powers last summer.

Russia canceled a contract to deliver the
advanced anti-missile rocket system to Iran in 2010 under pressure from
the West following U.N. sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear
program.

Tehran and Moscow have also started talks on the supply of the Russian-made Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to Iran, Dehghan said.

"We have even decided on the number of Sukhoi-30 fighter jets that we want to buy," Dehghan said.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The heavy cost of ignoring or rewarding Palestinian hostility and hate.

Activists who genuinely want to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians need to internalize a memorably alliterative warning: plenty of Palestinian passes perpetuate the impasse. The more global opinion ignores or rewards irresponsible behavior by Palestinians, the more likely renewed violence (rather than peace) becomes.

There are enough instances of unfair and counterproductive "Palestinian passes" to fill a tome, but here are some recent examples.

PASSING ON HAMAS BELLICOSITY

Probably the most important pass currently given to the Palestinians is the global silence over news that Hamas is preparing to launch another war against Israel while distressing ordinary Israelis with their ominous tunneling sounds. Such silence by the world's most important media, international bodies, political leaders, NGOs and academics helps keep Hamas in power, and when Hamas eventually launches new hostilities against Israel, many of the same voices that are now silent will blame Israel for the resulting suffering.

Hamas bellicosity is constant, and constantly ignored. Rather than prepare Palestinians for peace, Hamas glorifies death and promotes viciously hateful ideologies. A Hamas TV broadcast announces, "We have no problem with death. We are not like the children of Israel...we yearn for death and Martyrdom...Every mother...must nurse her children on hatred of the sons of Zion."

Global opinion seems indifferent to how incitement (including in Palestinian pop culture) contributes to Palestinian violence. Instead, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon blames Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israeli policy (settlements), which is like blaming the November Paris attacks on France's policy against Islamic veils in schools (ironically, Israel actually allows such veils in its schools).

Except for attacks on Israelis, world leaders and commentators never try to blame the victims of Islamist terror. This hateful, blame-the-victim exception for Jews is not limited to the Jewish state. According to recent polls, many of the French believe that Jews in France are responsible for a rise in anti-Semitism.

DIPLOMATIC PASSES

Those who claim to want Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation should recognize that pressuring only Israel actually reduces the prospects for peace (as an architect of the Oslo Peace Accords observed about the Obama administration's fruitless efforts). Unfortunately, France is repeating Obama's mistakes with its latest threat to recognize Palestine if Israelis doesn't make enough concessions to those trying to stab them.

PASSING ON ISRAELI VICTIMS

Phyllis Chesler shows how the New York Timesemploys a double standard in reporting on victims of violence. Palestinians are personalized with names, ages, and sympathetic eyewitnesses. That rarely happens with Israeli victims.

More recently, CAMERA highlights how leading U.S. papers downplay or ignore the recent Palestinian stabbing murders of Israeli women.A CBS News headline last week provided a classic example after gunmen attempted a terrorist attack outside Jerusalem's old city. Three terrorists died after killing a 19-year-old policewoman. The headline? "3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on." Thankfully, the network apologized and changed the headline. But the original version would have been akin to a 9/11 headline saying, "19 Muslims Die in Plane Crashes."

If the world knew just how important Israel is to solving some of the planet's toughest problems, and how Israelis can also be victims of war and terror, global opinion might be less judgmental and more protective of the only democracy in the Middle East, as the tiny Jewish state does its best to survive in the world's toughest neighborhood.

All of these types of passes grow exponentially worse whenever war breaks out, usually after Hamas launches one too many missiles at Israeli civilians. When Israel can no longer accept about 40 percent of its population living in range of deadly rocket attacks and finally does what any normal country would do – take military action against those attacking it – the global media bias moves into overdrive, enabled by "Pallywood," journalistic malpractice, and fear of Hamas retribution. Casualties inevitably mount, especially thanks to Hamas's unethical use of human shields, emotions run high, and media outlets compete to get "breaking news" out first, resulting in less time to check facts and more groupthink pressure to favor the perceived underdog. The media slant then exacerbates the bias from world leaders, international bodies, NGOs, academics, and anti-Israel boycott movements.

Thus, with each war, Israel gets more demonized while Palestinians are increasingly presented as blameless victims. Tragically, these biases actually perpetuate the conflict. Those who genuinely want peace should focus global media attention, lobbying, and resources on Palestinian intransigence and Hamas' obsessive focus on attacking and trying to "destroy Israel."

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, a doomsday thriller about the Iranian nuclear threat and current geopolitical issues in the Middle East.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261782/plenty-palestinian-passes-noah-beck Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.